A SURREY charity working to rehabilitate offenders has been given £80,000 to continue its work providing young people with education and training.

It has been a few busy months for the Surrey Care Trust, as it seeks to build on a 25-year legacy, which has affected both the county and its residents.

The charity, which works with young offenders and people who have had trouble with education, has been told it will receive £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to go towards running costs.

A further £30,000 will go directly towards constructing a second boat to go alongside the existing Swingbridge community boat, based in Guildford.

The charity – which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year – has been lauded for its work with offenders and hopes it can build on its work with the new boat, which is based on the River Wey in Dapdune Wharf, Guildford. With two boats, it will be able to use one to provide education and training for the offenders all year round, while the other will be free to take community groups out on boat trips.

Volunteers on the boat are mainly reformed drug and alcohol users, who have chosen to work on the boat into order to make a new start in life, or a mixture of students and volunteers.

They work with people ordered by the court to spend their days in unpaid work cleaning riverbanks, trimming hedges, and cutting trees.

Margaret Reeder, programme manager for the Swingbridge project, said many of the offenders who work on the boat use the experience in many different ways.

“There are some who like the thought of helping out, but then others who are forced, but even then the motivation is never to see the place ever again,” she said.

“Of course many of them get a qualification at the end so that’s like an added bonus. We had one perpetual offender from a travelling family who couldn’t read or write at first,” she said, “but by the end of his time here he could read.”

She estimated the charity worked with 70 offenders last winter. “We do want to increase the amount of people we work with,” she added. “Maybe that will include people from Send Prison.”

Ms Reeder said she planned to contact the prison in an attempt to obtain the services of serving prisoners at Swingbridge.

Helen Jackson, the University of Surrey’s community development officer, said working with the trust on the boat provided a good opportunity for students to broaden their horizons.

She said employers would look favourably on somebody who could demonstrate an aptitude for volunteering, in addition to studying.

Volunteer John Myles said that the addition of a new boat was a welcome one which would mean the charity could help more people in the community.

“Before it was split by what you could do in the weather, with the groups being taken out for daytrips in the summer and the offenders in the winter,” he said.

Mr Myles, a retired IT technician, admitted working with offenders could be challenging, but this was offset by the fact that they needed to be there.

“I think the fact that the offenders tend to be young and the volunteers are more mature, shall we say, means it can be more easy than you would expect,” he added.

“They can see that we are not a threat to them and there isn’t the kind of competition there would be if everybody was the same age.”

Any problems are dealt with by the offenders’ supervisors, and serious breaches will result in offenders returning to prison.

“You don’t tend to stay in personal contact with any of the offenders,” said Mr Myles, “but on a professional level of course we like to speak to them.

“You are working with them rather than supervising them.”

The charity also said the work the offenders carry out has a physical benefit on the nature of the environment.

Adam Owen, Guildford Borough Council’s countryside and conservation manager, said the work carried out by offenders is crucial to maintaining the upkeep of the borough.

“We have about 700 hectares of countryside within the borough and a total of four workers who help maintain it,” he explained.

“The best type of volunteers were the ones who were motivated to do the work, otherwise their time on the boat would be a waste of time.”

He added that the council is still on the lookout for volunteers, but the offenders played a vital short-term role.

“The volunteers are quite invaluable and we are always looking for more,” Mr Owen said.